Fri, May 6 7:00 – 8:00 PM Leavenworth Library TGIF: Michele Longo Eder presents: Salt In Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife (Presentation)

Sat, May 7 1:00 – 3:00 PM Bookstore: Michele Longo Eder signs: Salt In Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife (Book-signing)

Michele Longo Eder Winner of the prestigious WILLA Literary Award Salt In Our Blood is a personal account from a fisherman’s wife—from inside this dangerous yet alluring profession. Crabbing, as an industry, has navigated through many political, economical, and cultural changes in the last 40 years. But the fishing industry remains a closed society. Not many outsiders know what the workday looks like to a commercial fisherman and his family, nor what it takes to actually harvest the bounty of the ocean. Michele, an attorney married for 20 years to a fisherman living in Newport, Oregon, gave herself the task of keeping a journal to record the day-to-day adventurous and dangerous life. Salt In Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife The life of a fisherman’s wife is fraught with long absences of loved ones, abundant bounty or empty pots, and the ever present threat of death on a perilous sea. Eder describes the perils and joys of the commercial fishing industry, a risky yet alluring profession which often brings families feast or famine. She explains the big picture of trends in the industry—how quotas are imposed and prices set, the threat of strikes—and how this translates into daily life: she includes details such as recipes for the elaborate meals she prepared and froze for the crew, and her daily financial workbook entries. Michele’s descriptions of life at sea and the unpredictability of the weather and the ocean are eloquent, hard-hitting and eye-opening. Personal tragedy struck Michele’s family just before Christmas 2001, when her son Ben and three other men were lost in the wreck of the Nesika, just outside the Yaquina Bay Bar. This book is an offer of healing to her family, her community, and to fishing families everywhere. Through her grief, Eder finds inspiration in the 1962 quote from John F. Kennedy: “I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea… All of us have, in our veins, the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.”